Happy Birthday! Keanu Reeves Turns 52 Years Old

National treasure Keanu Reeves, one of America's greatest living actors, turns 52 today.Yes, I'm [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Keanu-Reeves-Constantine
(Photo: Warner Bros.)

National treasure Keanu Reeves, one of America's greatest living actors, turns 52 today.

Yes, I'm aware he's Canadian. I don't care. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is just that good.

Reeves, the first actor to depict DC Comics antihero John Constantine in live action, is best known for his roles in films like The Matrix and Speed. Currently, he's working on a sequel to his 2014 indie hit John Wick.

Reeves, who is also a filmmaker and musician, once aspired to be an Olympic hockey player, but an injury put an end to those dreams. Having done better in sports than academics, Reeves sought out another ambitious route for his talents and went into acting.

Reeves' career started on the stage in the mid-'80s before he moved to Los Angeles, living with an ex-stepfather who was a television actor.

Reeves's first feature film appearance was in Youngblood, no relation to the Rob Liefeld comic, in which he played a Québécois goalie -- which had, ironically, been his position prior to his injury. After a bigger role in River's Edge, Reeves took the next step in his career, becoming a household name with teen-focused comedies like Permanent Record and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

In the early '90s, Reeves exploded. Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey was a disappointment, but solidified him as a franchise actor at the same time he had critical success with My Own Private Idaho. In 1992, he starred in a pair of blockbusters: Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break and Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula.

Around this time, he started touring with his grunge band, Dogstar, with his Hollywood celebrity guaranteeing they would get noticed in the crowded '90s music market. After another huge success with 1994's Speed, he declined a reported $11 million salary to play a role in Speed 2: Cruise Control to tour with Dogstar instead, and appear in Hamlet at the Manitobe Theatre Centre.

A Walk in the Clouds solidified Reeves as a romantic lead, but after that he had a string of disappointments that apparently caused him to re-evaluate his career. After the failures of Feeling Minnesota, Johnny Mnemonic, and Chain Reaction, Reeves started seeking out projects and co-stars that would make him look better, taking huge pay cuts to make budget space for Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate and Gene Hackman in The Replacements.

Since then, he did the popular Matrix trilogy as well as films like Something's Gotta Have It and Constantine, rebuilding his rep as a consistent box office draw. He also left music behind, saying that while he enjoys it, he didn't want to seriously pursue it. Since the mid-2000s, he's gone on to have mixed success, varying up his roles between comedies, action films, dramas, blockbusters and independents. In addition to John Wick 2, he's also still developing (with co-star Alex Winter and writer Ed Solomon) a third Bill and Ted film. EXCELLENT!

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